By: Lenae

Lenae — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:54:22 +0000

My best friend is also a young journalist who sometimes finds herself reporting about worlds she never knew existed. From her tales, I know that it can be hard to separate yourself from the story, no matter how wonderful or horrifying the story is. It speaks to your great commitment to sharing the stories of others that you were able to put aside your uneasy feelings and immerse yourself in an unfamiliar world. I applaud you for your open mind wholeheartedly. Because of the good people on the outside who have been able to open their hearts to the idea of inmates as charitable people, this beautiful project can continue. Your story in the Daily Oklahoman moved me so much, and I’m glad that you were able to empathize with these gentlemen to such a great extent. But I have one request – rather than thinking of the JCCC inmates as “having committed” crimes, think of them as “having been convicted.” Hopefully, our justice system has functioned as well as we would like, and the two mean the same thing. But, unfortunately, sometimes they do not. Most of the time, we only have the convicted person’s word to go on. Eric Fowler is my father, and he has always said that he is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. I only have his word. We all hope that people are not wrongly convicted, but juries are made up of human beings, and human beings are not perfect. Juries and inmates alike are capable of mistakes. A proclamation of one’s innocence is not generally a good cause for reasonable doubt, but for me, and I’m sure for the families of other inmates, the distinction between “this person did this crime,” and “this person was convicted of this crime” feels like a big difference in the way my father is seen by others. Some would surely call this nitpicking, and maybe it is. But it’s compassionate nitpicking, right? Keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing the JCCC Veteran’s Club with so many people.

Comments on: A line between compassion and journalism

By: Lenae